I opened the hive yesterday, and to my dismay there were hundreds of ants. The bees were aggressive and buzzing me, and since I had forgotten to bring my smoker, I decided to wait until I had it before doing any more work.
I came back today to the hive with the smoker. I smoked the hell out of them (no pun intended). I took the hive apart, and brought it completely off the stand. I then put the legs of the hive stand into plastic mini-trash cans. I placed the hive sections back on the stand. Then put water and soap in the buckets.
While taking everything apart, I noticed that under the hive was an actual ant colony living on the wood. Ant pupae. I scraped most of them off. The water and soap is design to prevent ants from accessing the hive from the ground.
I noticed many hive beetles as well, but nothing out of control. Overall, given the ants, the hive looks pretty strong.
I should add that I was stung several times. Probably more times than I had previously been stung in 2.5 years total combined. Well, at least I am not allergic. A bee sting is initially a fairly intense sensation. Imagine someone sticking a needle into you and injecting bleach. At least for me, the pain goes away quickly. Now I'm just left with warmth and itching.
I'm not very much liking my hive being so far from me. Makes it harder to check up on, and increases the odds that something bad will happen to it. If ants were to get out of control, for example, the bees could pack up and leave. And that would be a disaster for me.
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